


I Dreamt About You Every Night

by Skeeter_110



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adult Peter Parker, Gen, Guilty Peter Parker, Hydra (Marvel), Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Presumed Dead, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:22:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28722081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeeter_110/pseuds/Skeeter_110
Summary: Tony Stark has been dead for seventeen years due to a mission gone wrong. He's survived getting blown up, palladium poisoning, terrorist attacks, and even Thanos himself, and he gets killed by - what was supposed to be - a simple day-to-day mission. Or, so everyone thought.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 21
Kudos: 72





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First multi-chaptered fic of the year!! I hope you all like this and I'm excited to see where it goes!

“I dreamed of you every night. It felt so real. And when I’d wake up the next morning, it was like your disappearance was fresh. Like you’d left me all over again.” - Brodi Ashton, Everneath.

* * *

Peter couldn't help the frustrated sigh that left him as he stared at the long line of traffic in front of him. He just wanted to hurry, get home, and try to forget what day it was by spending time with his family. 

It's been seventeen years since the worst thing imaginable happened. _Seventeen years_. And Peter still wasn't over it. He still moped around like a little child; as if he had any right to still be as upset over it as he was now. 

AC-DC could be heard playing on the radio, causing Peter to let out a groan before roughly turning the radio off. Of course, the silence didn't last long before his phone started ringing. Looking down at it, Peter saw that it was a call from Doctor Banner.

The traffic finally start moving, so Peter just rolled his eyes and declined the call, continuing his journey home. His phone rang another three times after that, Peter ignoring those attempts also, before they stopped altogether. That was, until Karen chimed in through the speakers.

_'Peter, I'm afraid that Miss Romanoff is demanding me to out her through. She's using her override code.'_ Karen informs, Peter huffing at it all. 

"Of course she is." Peter murmurs, waiting for the spy's voice to chime through his radio speakers. 

_"Peter?"_ Nat's voice rang throughout the car, as if she didn't know that she would get through to him by using the override codes. 

"Hey, Nat." Peter acknowledges, feigning nonchalance. 

_"I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing; I haven't heard from you in a couple of weeks."_ Nat says, subtly trying to make conversation.

"You know, Nat, for being a trained spy, you're terrible at lying." Peter teases as he pulls into his driveway, hoping that it'll distract Natasha from the real reason she was calling; even if it was only for a little bit.

_"You know, Parker, you're still as sassy as ever, even without spending time with Tony."_ Natasha retorts back, not really thinking about what she was saying until an awkward silence fell between the two.

“Can we be done with this conversation?” Peter snaps, all but slamming his front door behind him. 

_“No, I haven’t gotten my point across yet.”_ Nat says, gearing up to give Peter the same lecture she gives him every year on this day. “It’s been seventeen years now since Tony died, Peter.” Nat begins, and didn’t that reminder just drive the knife in deeper?

Seventeen years ago, Tony Stark died.

As if Peter wasn’t aware that the anniversary of his death was today and needed that reminder. As if Peter hasn’t beaten himself up for the past seventeen years for not being able to get to Tony in time to prevent his death.

It was supposed to be a simple in and out mission. They were supposed to go in the - seemingly - abandoned HYDRA base, grab the leftover files and anything that seemed of value and get out. That was the only reason Peter was even allowed to go with them in the first place. Because they were expecting it to be a simple mission, the team decided that splitting off in pairs would be best.

The mission was going great, too. Tony and Peter - who were paired up together - decided to split up on the floor they were on to try and gain more information faster. Which proved to be the wrong thing to do because before they knew it, the whole team was trapped inside of the building, hundreds of HYDRA soldiers surrounding them.

By the time Peter was able to fight the ones around him off long enough to run back to the room he left Tony in, the billionaire was gone. Peter ran all over the floor they were on - which was difficult considering the fight the soldiers were bringing - but there was no sign of Tony.

Peter could hear Steve yelling in the coms for everyone to get out of the building and go to the meeting spot as soon as they could. Peter just assumed that Tony had left, had followed orders for once, and headed out himself. 

The teen quickly found out how wrong his assumption was when he finally got to the quinjet and saw everyone except for Tony there.

For five years, Tony Stark was declared missing.

After year six rolled around, his body was found under the Brooklyn bridge.

And for all of those seventeen years, Peter hasn’t stopped blaming himself.

If he hadn’t agreed to split up, if he had been better, stronger, maybe all of this could have been avoided. Maybe Tony would still be here. 

_“You need to accept the fact that it was not your fault. You need to stop blaming yourself.”_ Nat continues with her lecture. At this point, Peter could recite the whole lecture back at her.

“Nat, I just got home from one of the longest days, and I still have to have dinner done before M.J gets home with the kids. Can we be done here?” Peter sighs, hoping to save himself for the rest of the lecture.

_“You need to visit Pepper.”_ Natasha says anyway, making Peter groan in frustration.

“Nat, I have no right to go visit her! She lost her husband and has a real biological child that lost her _real biological_ Father. It would be wrong of me to bother them during this time.” Peter argues, begrudgingly putting the phone on speaker - since Nat very clearly wasn’t going to end this conversation anytime soon - and began getting some pots out to begin dinner.

_“You have every right to be with them. You know Pepper saw you as much of her child as Tony did.”_ Nat reminds, Peter choosing to remain silent as he filled one of the pots with water. _“Pepper’s getting worried about you since you haven’t gone and seen her in a month. She just wants to make sure you’re okay; we all do.”_ Nat adds, pushing Peter officially over the edge. He was beginning to get tired of people constantly telling him they were worried about him when nothing was wrong with him.

“Just stop! I’m not going to have another breakdown like I did before! I’m not a kid anymore, I’m a grown-ass adult!” Peter shouts before quickly hanging up. He knew he just signed his own death sentence, but he really couldn’t bring himself to care at this point.

Instead, he just turned the stove on and began to boil the water sitting in the pot. While waiting for it, Peter walked into the living room and plopped down onto the couch with a heavy sigh; taking his suit jacket and tie off while he did so. He just wanted to relax, be with his family, and completely forget what day it was today. Was that too much to ask?

Although, by trying to completely forget, Peter began thinking about something else. Peter was still left thinking about Pepper and Morgan. 

Even after Thanos, when everyone came back, Pepper and Tony both have never made Peter feel like an outsider because of Morgan. Even Morgan accepted Peter into their family, fully adopting him as her older brother. But Peter still couldn’t help but feel like a burden to them; especially now. How could he ever be family with them again if he was the reason they lost their husband and father in the first place? 

It might have been a cowardice move, but Peter would rather distance himself from them than have it slip that they actually blamed him for all of these years. Unfortunately, Morgan didn’t get that memo.

Morgan refused to let Peter shut himself out. She always showed up, whether it was announced or not, refusing to let Peter banish himself from the Stark family forever. 

Which was why Peter instantly tensed back up when he heard a knock at the front door. He and Morgan settled on having dinner together at least every other Friday, but he usually canceled whenever it landed on the anniversary. Morgan clearly didn’t listen when he canceled this time - and from his conversation with Nat - he isn’t all too surprised.

Peter quickly got up off of the couch and makes his way into the kitchen, grabbing the noodles and pouring them into the boiling water as another knock echoed through the house. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” Peter announces before making his way to the front door.

“Sorry, Mo, I didn’t realize the time. Dinner might be a little-” Peter begins to apologize, the rest of his sentence getting stuck in his throat when he opened up the door and saw that it wasn’t Morgan who was knocking. 

“Hey, Kid.”


	2. Chapter 2

“You survived; I survived. We’re together again. I once begged the gods to let me see you — if only for a moment. To see you and know you’d made it. Just once; that was all I ever hoped for.” - **Sarah J. Maas,** **Queen of Shadows**

* * *

Peter's body reacted before he could even fully register in his mind who he was staring at, slamming the door right in the person's face. 

Right after the door shut, the reality of what Peter just saw came crashing down onto him, making him groan and tug on his hair stressfully.

"No. No, no, no, no, this can't be happening. This can't be happening again." Peter moans, bending over and placing his elbows on his knees in an attempt to catch his breath back. 

“Hey, Pete. I know this is a really bad time and way to be doing this, but do you think you could freak out with me _in_ the house? I kind of don’t want everyone to know I’m alive yet.” The voice was heard through the other side of the door, making Peter straighten back up. 

Taking a deep, shuddering breath in, Peter opened the door back up, the air once again being knocked out of his lungs when he saw the man standing on the other side. Not wanting others to see him talking to the man, Peter quickly grabbed his wrist and pulled him in. As soon as the door slammed, Peter instantly went back to freaking out, his hands finding his hair once again.

Peter didn’t even know what to do currently other than pace. I mean, what are you supposed to do when you start seeing your dead mentor/father figure again?

“Look, Pete, I know I’m kind of just springing this upon you; I’m probably not doing this in the best way possible. But Pepper told me you didn’t really go over there anymore and that if I didn’t come over here to see you that-” Tony began to ramble, Peter quickly shushing him.

“Shh... no. No talking. Just- Just- Just- shh, for a second.” Peter says, looking up at the ceiling and taking a deep breath in. “I thought I was doing good. This shouldn’t be happening, _again_.” Peter murmurs to himself.

“Wait, again? What do you mean again?” Tony voices his confusion, stopping there when he realized that him talking was making Peter freak out even more. 

“You know what? This isn't even real. You’re not real; you can’t be real. This is all one big figment of my imagination.” Peter laughs, rubbing his face and keeping his hands over his eyes afterwards. “It’s all a part of my imagination - you’re a part of my imagination - and when I open my eyes back up, you’ll be gone.” Peter says before counting down from three.

Once he got to one, Peter dragged his hands down his face, whimpering when he saw Tony still standing there.

“Yeah, sorry, Kid, but I’m as real as can be; I can’t just disappear.” Tony says sympathetically. 

Both Tony and Peter’s attentions were taking off of each other and placed onto the front door, which was opening once again. 

“Hey, Tiger, we’re home. You would not believe what Benji and Claire were-” A very pregnant M.J greets as she walks into the house, a small girl sleeping in her arms. She quickly stopped short and looked like she had seen a ghost when she looked up to where the two men were. 

“Please tell me you can see him too.” Peter pleads once he took in the panic that was on his wife’s face. “J? Can you see him too? Em? Can-” M.J slightly nodded, Peter gasping at the response and turning around to face Tony. 

“Surprise.” Tony half-heartedly says, sounding like he was also drained from this situation. 

“Oh my God.” 

* * *

“So, you married ‘Scary Girl’ then, huh?” Tony asks after a bit of silence. 

Once the overwhelming feeling of shock wore off, M.J was able to wrangle Peter and Tony into the living room before wrangling their three kids up into their rooms and making her way into the kitchen to finish up dinner. 

Now, Peter and Tony were just sitting in silence - or at least they were - Peter staring out of the window as he attempted to calm his racing mind. 

“Yep.” Peter shortly answers, not looking away from the window and not really being able to respond with more.

“And I’m assuming that the little girl in ‘Scary Girl’s arms and the other girl and boy that went upstairs are your kids?” Tony continues to ask, sighing in disbelief when Peter nodded. “Shit, Pete. You’re really all grown now, aren’t you?” 

“Yeah, well that’s what happens when you’ve been dead for seventeen years. _Seventeen years_. That’s how long you’ve been dead; supposedly. I-I mean, how are you even here right now? We had a funeral for you - we buried your dead body. You are - in every sense of the word - dead.” Peter says, finally turning to face Tony.

He looked exactly the same. You wouldn’t even be able to tell that seventeen years had passed just by looking at Tony. He looked exactly the same as he did when Peter last saw him at the mission. 

Just looking at him made Peter realize exactly how Tony must have felt when he got dusted. He now understood what it was like for someone to be gone for so many years, only to pop back into their lives and look like nothing had even happened. 

The only difference was Tony was ready and prepared for when Peter got snapped back. 

“See, Pete, I wish I could tell you what happened, but I don’t even know myself. One minute, I’m being swarmed by those HYDRA goons, and then the next, I’m waking up in the middle of a field and seventeen years have passed.” Tony tells him, confusing Peter.

“Wait, you don’t remember anything? Not even who took you?” Peter asks.

“No. I don’t even remember them sticking me with anything when we were at the base. I couldn’t tell you where they took me, what they wanted, or what they even looked like.” Tony responds, making Peter sigh.

“Do you think they were trying to make you into another soldier? Like Bucky?” Peter asks, letting out the breath he was holding when Tony shook his head. He doesn’t know what he would do if he found out they were experimenting on Tony this entire time. 

“No, I would have noticed the changes. I don’t have a single scar, bruise, or scratch on me. My best guess is that they took me for the same reasons the Ten Rings took me; to build tech and weapons for them.” Tony says.

“Yeah, but if you were building all of this stuff for seventeen years, something should have popped up by now, right? I mean we haven’t heard anything from HYDRA in ten years; we honestly thought we managed to destroy them.” Peter says, the conversation being paused there when M.J came in afterwards. 

“Hey, Fellas, hate to break up the family reunion, but you might want to keep the HYDRA talk on the down-low now. Dinner’s almost done and the kids are going to be down here soon.” M.J informs them.

“Thanks, Love.” Peter murmurs, watching as M.J made her way back into the kitchen. 

“Damn, Pete, you’re like a fully-grown man now. I mean, hell, you have a wife now, three children and one on the way, your own company. I really missed a shit ton, huh?” Tony marvels, Peter sighing out a ‘yeah’ before they both fell into another bit of silence.

During that silence, Tony couldn’t help but think about something Peter said earlier. About how Peter was crying that this was happening again. He was still confused on what Peter meant by that and why he was adamant that no one else would be able to see him. 

“Who are you?” A tiny voice asks before Tony was able to speak up, startling both men sitting on the couch. Tony looked around the living room, confused on where he was hearing the voice from until he looked up. 

Sure enough, there was a little girl sitting upside down on the ceiling and very much so waiting for a response.

“Uhh…” Tony elegantly responded, unsure of both how to respond and how to react to the child being on the ceiling. 

“Annie-May, get down from the ceiling. What have we told you about doing that?” Peter scolds, standing up and catching the girl as she let go and dropped from the ceiling. All Tony could do was watch, marveling at the fact that Peter really truly was a Father now.

“Not to.” The girl answers, sounding fully reprimanded. Peter just sighed, shaking his head fondly before looking over at Tony.

“I guess I should introduce you to my youngest daughter. Tony, this is Annie-May. Annie, this is Tony.” Peter introduces as he sits back down on the couch with Annie in his lap. “What are your siblings up to?” Peter asks once they settled. 

“They’re working on their science project.” Annie answers. 

“Why don’t you go get them and tell them that dinner is about ready.” Peter says, placing Annie down on the floor and shooing her off. “If you want to stay for dinner so we can talk more about this afterwards, you can. I understand if you would rather go back to Pepper and Morgan and make up for lost time with your family.” Peter hesitantly offers, already mentally preparing himself for Tony to up and leave.

“Pete, you’re my family too; you know you’ve always been my kid. I would love to stay for dinner. Plus I got to see how much karma is biting you in the butt with your kids.” Tony sincerely replies, making Peter laugh.

And for the first time, in seventeen years, Peter was relieved from the heavy weight of guilt that would sit on his chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to mention that I'll try to update every Friday haha


	3. Chapter 3

“You don't start searching for truth until something goes terribly wrong and you realize that you need it. There's no going back after that.”

― **Tarryn Fisher,** **F*ck Love**

* * *

"So how is May doing?" Tony awkwardly asks as they began to set the table, already dreading the answer.

He wasn't stupid. He knew he missed almost two whole decades - hell, seeing Pepper almost twenty years older than him rather than five years younger was surreal on it's own - he knew there was a big chance May was no longer here. 

"She - uh - she passed. Two years ago." Peter says, confirming Tony's suspicions. 

"Oh, Pete, I'm sorry." Tony sighs and, not for the first time, realized how much he truly missed over the past few years.

"It's okay. Well, it's not _'okay'_ but we kind of saw it from a mile away. She was diagnosed with dementia and eventually it just got to the point where she could hardly remember how to swallow so we knew it wouldn't have been too much longer." Peter explains, Tony giving Peter a sad smile in return. 

He wasn't quite sure how to react to the news that he wasn't even able to say one last good-bye to his closest friend. To the only reason that he was even allowed and able to call Peter his son.

Thankfully, the subject got dropped quickly when footsteps were heard coming into the dining room.

"Hey, Claire, did you wash up? Mama's just about done with dinner." Peter greets the pre-teen that walked in.

"Yeah." The girl - Claire, Tony's mind supplies - slowly replies, hesitantly walking towards the table while side-eyeing Tony. "Uh... Dad?" Claire asks, Peter completely oblivious to the looks the pre-teen was giving Tony due to him walking into the kitchen.

"What's up?" Peter asks as he walks back into the dining room with a bowl of rolls. It wasn't until he saw the looks that Claire was giving Tony that he began to understand what was happening.

"Why does he look like Grandpa Tony?" Claire asks, her eyes not leaving Tony even once. 

"Yeah, that is an explanation that will come with dinner. So go wash up if you haven't already." Peter says before making his way back into the kitchen.

Tony just watched as Claire continued to give him the stink-eye as she walked away; shivering once he was sure she was gone. She was almost as scary as Tony remembers M.J to be. Which wasn't a thought he should be having about his granddaughter. 

And that - that right there was enough to stop Tony in his tracks. Because it was only then that he realized he had grandchildren. 

Not when Pepper told Tony that Peter had a whole family now, not when M.J walked in pregnant with three other kids following her behind, and not even when one of Peter's daughters called him grandpa.

Right here and now it was finally hitting Tony that he was technically a grandfather. And, just like with all the rest of the information that's been dumped onto him, Tony wasn't even sure how to feel about that. 

He didn't have too much time to dwell on it, though, before a bunch of chaos insured. 

Annie-May ran into the room, practically barreling into Tony as she tried to evade a teen boy that was attempting to chase after her. It wasn't until then that Tony actually got a good look and noticed the crutches he was using to get around. 

"Come here, you little runt!" The boy yelled at Annie, the small girl jumping up on the wall and crawling up to the ceiling to avoid getting swiped at by the pre-teen. "Oh, that's so unfair. Get back down here!" The boy yells at Annie, seething a bit more when all the girl did in return was stick her tongue out at him.

"Excuse me? What do you two think you're doing?" Peter asks in that "Dad" voice that even Tony had become accustomed to using, raising his eyebrows when no one answered him.

"Annie-May was messing with our project." The boy all but tattles.

"I was not! I was trying to get you to come downstairs for dinner like I was told to do!" Annie argues back making Peter sigh and rub his face.

"Okay, Ben, quit chasing and tormenting your little sister; she was told to come get you for dinner. Annie, you don't need to mess with their science project in order to get him down here. Now, Annie, get off of the ceiling and go in the kitchen to see if your Mama needs help; Ben, go wash up for dinner." Peter corrals, playfully ruffling Annie's hair as she walked by.

"You know, I don't really have to wash up. I washed my hands at school before coming home." Ben argues, earning a very unimpressed look in return.

"That may be true, but weren't you and Claire working with chemicals for your project?" Peter asks, the silence he got in return being all the answer he needed. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Go wash your hands." Peter says, lightly pushing Ben's head towards the bathroom, making the pre-teen laugh as he began walking away.

"Welcome to my - somewhat - controlled chaos." Peter jokes, finally acknowledging Tony as he sets a bowl of salad onto the table.

"Yeah, well, you can't really be all that surprised considering you used to run me and May ragged." Tony teased right back making Peter laugh. 

"Let's just be thankful that none of them have tried to sneak out in pajamas and use their powers to save kittens from trees." M.J chimes in as she walks into the dining room, Peter letting out a gasp in faux offense.

"It wasn't pajamas!" Peter protests, earning unimpressed looks from both Tony and M.J. 

"Yes it was." They both said at the same time, making Peter huff and mumble something about being attacked in his own home. M.J just looked at Tony before giving him a small smile; a huge accomplishment in Tony's eyes since he remembers it was almost impossible for him to do before everything happened.

"It's good to have you back. I don't know how you're back but I'm glad either way." M.J says, patting Tony on the shoulder as she walked past.

"You know, I think that's just about the nicest thing you've ever said to me, Jones." Tony says, pretending to sniffle and fold his hands over his heart.

"Don't get used to it." M.J says, giving him the same side-eyed glare that he had just received a minute ago from Claire. 

"There's the same scary girl I remember." Tony teases only earning an eye-roll in return. 

"Well, you might as well take a seat and start making your plate up before the kids get here and you're left foraging for scraps." Peter says while him and M.J both sat down at the table.

Tony just chuckled and shook his head, deciding to take the warning and sit down also. If Peter's children had even a lick of the same appetite he has, Tony knew he should definitely take them up on the offer. 

Almost as if they knew plates were being made, all three kids were running into the dining room, all but plopping down into their chairs and scrambling to put food on their plates. 

Tony couldn't help but watch in awe at how easy it was for the perfect picture of domestication to occur. Almost as soon as every one had food on their plates, the kids took that as invitation to begin talking about their days.

Once again, Tony was left marveling over how much he missed. He missed Peter getting married, and having his first kid; along with his second and third. He missed most of his life with Pepper, and he missed Morgan graduating high school and going off to college.

Tony only allowed the sadness he felt to wash over him for a second before quickly turning it into determination. He was going to do everything in his power to make sure that he didn't miss anymore time with his family, and he was going to make sure whoever did this was going to pay for it.

"So, are we just going to continue to ignore the big elephant in the room eating dinner with us? No offense." Claire pipes in once it seemed that everyone was somewhat finished with their dinner.

"None taken?" Tony brushes off, unsure if he really should take that statement as a slight or not. 

"It's kind of hard to explain." Peter starts, glancing over towards Tony and sighed when all the scientist did was shrug. Tony figured that since Peter - obviously - knew his kids better, he would be better fit to explain the situation to them.

"Well, you all know how there's bad people out there that don't like the Avengers? And how they'll do anything to stop us from doing good?" Peter begins, waiting for all the kids to confirm before continuing. "Well, we don't know why, but those bad people thought that the best way to stop the Avengers was by taking Grandpa Tony."

"But why would that stop the Avengers?" Ben asks.

"And I thought you guys were sure he was dead. Didn't you guys have a whole funeral for him? Why would you have a funeral if you didn't even know he was dead?" Claire chimes in before Peter could even answer Ben's question.

"So this is what Grandpa Tony looks like?" Annie blurts out, still making it impossible for Peter to answer any questions.

"Okay, okay, slow down. We're not sure exactly why they took Grandpa Tony, but we can just assume it was to stop the Avengers and take over. And we thought he was dead because the bad guys managed to make a fake body to trick us. They probably didn't like that we were hot on their trail trying to find Tony." Peter explains, both teens nodding their heads as if all of this made perfect sense.

"So, what happens now?" Claire asks, making Tony and Peter look at each other. Neither one of them really knew how to answer that question. They hadn't actually gotten that far yet.

"What happens now is you kids finish up your homework and get ready for bed." M.J replies when she realized that none of the men there knew how to respond. Of course, without fail, all three kids began to whine at the apparent absurdity of it all. 

"Dad?" Claire asks, doing her best to give Peter her patent puppy-dog-eyes. 

"Nope, sorry, I have to agree with your mother here." Peter says, making all of the kids grumble and groan as they got up from their seats, cleaned up their messes, and reluctantly made their ways back into their rooms. 

"I am going to clean up in the kitchen, you boys need to talk and figure out what your next move is." M.J says, planting a kiss on the side of Peter's head before walking off towards the kitchen. 

"So, I guess we need to figure out our game plan, huh?" Peter awkwardly asks, unsure really of where to go from this point.

"We need to figure out where they took me first before we plan anything else." Tony starts.

"How are we going to figure that out? Tony, I've re-watched the only footage that we have over and over again for five years. Not one clue of where they've hidden you popped up. All the clues we had were a dead-end." Peter tells the scientist. 

"Maybe there's something in the field they dropped me off at." Tony shrugs.

"Yeah, maybe. It would probably be best if we went at night, though. That way it'll be harder for anyone to see us snooping around." Peter agrees, trying to come up with a simple plan that won't raise suspicion. 

"So it's settled then; tomorrow night it's time to suit up." Tony says as they both began to stand up, Peter laughing and pulling Tony in for a hug.

Tony couldn't help but melt into the hug, glad to hold his boy - who was not really a boy anymore - in his arms.

"I missed you and your pop culture references." Peter light-heartedly admits, making Tony chuckle and ruffle Peter's hair. 

"I better get going, though, so I'll see you tomorrow, Pete." Tony says before walking towards the kitchen and exchanging goodbyes with M.J.

"See you tomorrow, Tony." Peter repeats as Tony leaves through the front door, watching as Tony got into his car and began to drive away.

Something deep down in Peter's gut told him that no matter what, they weren't going to find anything but trouble tomorrow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was just kind of a filler chapter haha stuff will start happening again next chapter


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter really got away from me haha sorry about that. Also warning: there is talk about how Tony's disappearance really affected Peter (spoiler alert it didn't effect him in a good way) so just tread lightly.

Always go too far, because that's where you'll find the truth.

-Albert Camus

* * *

"So, how are we feeling about everything?" M.J asks randomly as both she and Peter were getting ready to go to bed. Peter just shrugged, distracting himself with brushing his teeth while he thought of how to answer his wife's question. 

"I don't know, really." Peter mumbles as he rinsed the toothpaste out of his mouth. "It's all... a lot." Peter finally settles for. 

"Yeah, it is. I would say its not everyday someone you know comes back from the dead but you and I are standing here right now." M.J says, watching as Peter sighs and begins walking into their bedroom.

M.J slowly followed, knowing that right now it was probably best to give Peter a bit of space so he could actually begin processing everything that had just happened. 

She knew how much guilt was hanging over Peter's head since the mission happened. She was there for the whole thing; she saw the whole downfall of Peter Parker. She saw what that kind of guilt did to him. 

She had to watch as Peter all but dropped out of college, spending all of his time on the hunt for Tony. She had to watch as the guilt began to slowly crush Peter, pushing him into his breakdown, and she was there for the slow recovery after.

Even after Peter recovered from his breakdown, M.J still saw how the guilt lingered and continued to weigh Peter down.

So M.J knew that it was going to be a lot to have all of that guilt lift all at once. She just wasn't sure if the situation had hit Peter yet or not. 

M.J leaned against the bedroom door, watching as Peter pulled back the covers and crawled into bed. She could practically see all of the thoughts running through his brain as he continued to stare at the ground. 

She walked into the bedroom herself, crawling into bed next to Peter and laying on her side to face him. 

"You wanna tell me what's going on in that big brain of yours?" M.J quietly asks, brushing away some of the curls that fell in Peter's face with her free hand.

"I don't even know. It's just... a lot." Peter repeats the same answer from before. Deep down, though, M.J could see that Peter was barely holding it all together. 

"You can let it all out, you know. No one has to know, I won't tell anyone." M.J promises, gently coxing Peter's head to rest against her shoulder. 

It was almost as if Peter was waiting for permission and as soon as he got it he finally let out all of the emotions he was holding in since he saw Tony again out. 

Both of them just laid there for a bit, M.J holding Peter close to her as she let him get all of his complex feelings out. 

"What are we going to do?" Peter practically whimpers into M.J's shoulder once he finally managed to stop his sobs.

"The same thing we did when you were recovering from your breakdown. Take things slow and one day at a time."

* * *

"Alright, Tony's here." Peter tells M.J once he saw the fancy car pull up into the driveway.

"Okay, please be safe. The last thing we need is you getting captured by some Nazi organization." M.J says, giving Peter a hug and kiss goodbye. 

"I'll be safe, I promise. I'll always come back to you guys." Peter promises, kissing M.J back before exchanging "I love you's" and walking out the front door.

"Hey, Underoos, you ready to rock this?" Tony asks once Peter opens up the passenger side door.

"Well, you know, I would be a little bit more ready if I knew where we were really going." Peter says as Tony begins to take off down the road. 

"New Jersey." Tony answers, making Peter gape at him in shock. 

"What the hell were you doing in New Jersey?" Peter asks, watching as Tony shrugged in return.

"I guess that's what we're going to find out." Tony responds, Peter allowing a silence to fall upon them afterwards. "Well, you know, since we're stuck in a car together for two hours, how about we play twenty questions?" Tony suggests, making Peter scoff out a laugh.

"Twenty questions? What are we two twelve-year-olds at a slumber party?" Peter teases. Tony rolling his eyes in return. 

"No, but I have been gone for seventeen years. It would be nice to know some things going on in your life." Tony explains.

"Fine, go for it." Peter sighs, figuring if that was the reason then who was he to deny it from Tony? Peter understands how hard it is to readapt to life around you when so much time has passed and the feeling of being left out of everything.

"Alright, first question; how long have you and M.J been married?" Tony asks, and began the huge onslaught of questions.

They talked about everything from Peter and M.J getting together, to how Peter began Parker Industries, to how all three of his kids being born. They spent the next hour talking and laughing like there wasn't so many missed years between them. 

"Alright, I just have one more big question." Tony says once their previous conversation came to a close. 

"Shoot." Peter permits.

"When I showed up to your house last night, you were talking about how this was happening again and you were adamant that no one else was going to be able to see me. Now, I can understand freaking out - because, hell, it's really not everyday that someone comes back from the dead - but that isn't a usual freak-out." Tony says, the light-hearted mood quickly being erased. 

Peter just looked down at his hands in shame, which confused Tony even more.

"I don't even know where to begin with that one." Peter whispers, not even bothering from looking up from his hands.

"Just begin anywhere, Pete. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's not the weirdest thing to happen to us." Tony tries to reassure. A few moments passed where they sat in silence, Peter trying to figure out how to explain it all.

"When you disappeared, it wasn't good. We were all worried and stressed out; some of us refused to sleep, not wanting to sleep when we could be doing something to help search for you. It wasn't good on me." Peter began to explain.

"As soon as we were able to hack into the security camera footage from that night, I refused to sleep. I started skipping all of my college classes, I stopped eating, I refused to take care of myself. The only thing that mattered was finding even a sliver of a clue to where you could have gone. At first I thought it was due to sleep deprivation; from pushing myself and stressing myself out so much." 

"You thought what was sleep deprivation?" Tony asks, still confused on what Peter was getting at.

"I started seeing you. Like-Like a hallucination or something. I thought it was because I was just so tired and so keen on getting you back. At first it started out as me mistaking other people on the street for you, then it quickly turned into seeing you everyday. At first I thought I was insane - I probably was, really - because you would talk to me, but then it turned into me responding, and then it just became the new normal,"

"I thought maybe it was just something my subconscious conjured up with the image I had of you. That maybe it was just something to ease my guilty conscious. But then it started turning into something much more." 

"What did it start to turn into?" Tony asks, already dreading the answer. 

"My guilty conscious turning against me. It was about a year after you disappeared. I should have never indulged into that hallucination - I should have gotten help as soon as it began to happen - but I was selfish and it quickly backfired against me. You began to tell me how worthless I was when I would stumble upon yet another dead end. You began to tell me about how it was all my fault that you were taken; that it should have been me instead." Peter tells him, making Tony's heart break even more.

He already assumed that his disappearance was hard on Peter. Hell, the kid's lost three parental figures before him, it's no wonder the fourth one would have been the breaking point. He just didn't think it broke the kid this much. 

"Soon I started to believe what the hallucination was saying. I quickly became depressed, I all but gave up on the search, I quit eating, I couldn't even get out of bed. My dark intrusive thoughts rapidly became things the hallucination was saying and soon it was telling me I needed to die; that it needed to be me instead of you. I completely broke down, I couldn't take it anymore and I did exactly what the hallucination of you told me to do." Peter finishes saying.

"Pete..." Tony breathlessly says, unsure of what to really even say to that. 

"If it wasn't for M.J I wouldn't even be here. She was the one that noticed something was wrong that day, and she was the one that got found me and got Aunt May. Both M.J and Aunt May were the ones that helped me through what we call 'my breakdown' and eventually I got better, but I still think we were all secretly scared it would happen again." Peter finishes explaining. 

A heavy silence settled in the car, neither one of the men in there knowing what to say after all of that. It was a lot to process all at once, and even though it was completely out of his control, Tony couldn't stop the heavy pit of guilt from forming in his chest. 

"Pete, you know I don't blame you at all for what happened, right?" Tony asks as he pulls over to the side of the road in front of a corn field. 

"Is this where you woke up?" Peter asks instead, easily changing the subject while nodding at the corn field. 

"Yeah, it is." Tony sighs, choosing to pick his battles and allowing Peter to change the subject.

"Alright, lets see what we can find." Peter says before getting out of the car, Tony being quick to follow. 

Peter wasn't even quite sure what they were looking for exactly; although that realization didn't dawn onto him until after he was shoulder deep in a corn field. 

"Why did they drop you off in a corn field of all places. Like, what even is here?" Peter questions as he and Tony began to walk further into the field. 

"Nothing. I think that was the point, though. There's nothing and no one around so it was easier for them to go undetected." Tony replies, shrugging as they continued to look high and low for even a clue.

It wasn't until Peter started hearing rustling that they stopped.

"Hey, wait, shh." Peter stops Tony from moving, straining his ears to try and decipher what he was hearing. 

"What's happening?" Tony asks, only to get shushed in return.

"You said there was no one around for miles, right?" Peter asks, making Tony scoff.

"Yeah. I mean did you see any houses when we were on our way here?" Tony asks in return.

"Yeah, well, there's rustling and footsteps on the other side of the field that's way too heavy for them to be a deer's." Peter tells Tony, pulling him down onto the ground with him and crawling a bit forward to try and be able to hear more clearly.

"You said this is where he would be?" Peter heard a man say, making his eyebrows furrow as he tried to concentrate harder.

"This is where he have dropped at least." Another man responded.

"I can't believe you let him escape." The first man huffs.

"Excuse me, I just work in the labs. Last I checked there were thousands of guards there and who was the one to shoot Stark with the tranq? Me!" The second man argues, completely shocking Peter. 

"You escaped. Tony they didn't drop you off, you escaped." Peter harshly whispers, both he and Tony staring at each other in shock. "There's two men coming this way on the other side of the field. They were just talking about how you escaped and they tried to tranquilize you to stop you. Apparently it wasn't as strong as they thought it was because you didn't stop until you got here." Peter says, jumping up when the footsteps began to get closer.

"Come on, we need to go because they figure out where here." Peter says, pulling Tony back up to his feet before running back towards the car. 

"Hey! Over there!" One of the men yelled when they saw the corn moving, making Tony and Peter hop in the car and take off as fast as they could.

It wasn't until the two men caught their breaths and were sure that they were far enough away that they allowed themselves relax.

"You do realize this means that their base is in New Jersey, right?" Peter brings to attention, Tony shrugging in return "Two hours away. You were two hours away all those years."

"Don't beat yourself up about it too much, Pete. There was absolutely no way of you knowing without me telling you where I woke up." Tony tries to console, Peter agreeing in return just to end the discussion on that end. 

As they continued driving back home to New York, all Peter could think was "what the hell did they just discover?"


	5. Chapter 5

“Truth never damages a cause that is just.”  
― Mahatma Gandhi

* * *

"What do you think you're doing?" M.J demands to know as she barges into Peter's lab, Peter looking like a kid that just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar when she began looking at the video he was watching.

"No, Peter, we can't be back to this." M.J says, shaking her head at the same video that she saw the first couple of years Tony was missing. The same video that was playing when she found Peter lifeless. "You have a job, now, and a family that needs you desperately. You cannot become obsessed with this again." M.J scolds.

"I know, Love, I know, and I'm not going to become obsessed again. I just wanted to comb through this one more time, just to make sure we're not missing something now that we know the base is somewhere in New Jersey." Peter explains, making M.J sigh. 

"Your kids miss you. You've been down here all day." M.J tells Peter making him the one to sigh this time.

"I'm sorry. I promise I'll make it up to all of you tomorrow. How about when you take Claire to her dentist appointment tomorrow, I'll pick the other two kids up from school and after the appointment you can meet us out for a nice family dinner. Just us, no distractions." Peter offers. 

"Just us?"

"Just us." Peter confirms.

"No distractions?"

"Absolutely none at all." Peter says smiling when he saw the grin forming on his wife's face.

"You know what, Tiger, I think you have a deal." M.J says while wrapping her arms around Peter's neck. Peter couldn't resist standing up and planting a kiss on her lips, chuckling a bit at the fact that he was still able to make the "big, bad" Michelle melt. 

"How about we call it a night and go to bed?" Peter asks as they slowly pulled away.

"I think you've got yourself another deal."

* * *

"Mr. Parker, you have a visitor." Peter's P.A knocks on the door, her confusion already telling him who said visitor could possibly be. 

"It's okay, let him in." Peter permits, quickly double checking his work on his computer before saving it. Something told him he wasn't going to be getting much work done now. 

"Hey, Underoos." Tony greets as he walks into the office, Peter only pretending to be annoyed at the nickname; in reality he's been dying to hear Tony tease him again like this. 

"Hey, Tony, what are you doing here?" Peter asks not unkindly.

"Oh, just wanted to check out Parker Industries, see what my protégé has accomplished while I was gone. You know, I've heard from Pep that Parker Industries is our top competitor." Tony says, but rather than sounding mad he sounded impressed.

"Yeah, we're usually nipping on your toes because with M.J working at Stark Industries, we don't want to put you guys out of business and have her lose her job." Peter teases right back, smiling at the fake wounded look Tony put on. 

"Ouch, Parker, I'm hurt." Tony mock ups, making Peter roll his eyes fondly.

"Would it make you feel better if we went downstairs and looked at some of the R&D labs I got going on here?" Peter offers, Tony pretend to actually think about it.

"Yeah, you know what, I think that would actually do the trick." Tony answers, making Peter laugh as he got up and began leading the way.

He decided to give Tony a full tour of the company, making sure to spend time showing him everything that he managed to create and accomplish over the past decade. After a few hours, when Peter was satisfied Tony saw everything there was to see, both men went down to the company's cafeteria and got a quick bite to eat.

"So, have you figured anything else out about the possible location of the base?" Peter asks once they settled down at one of the cafeteria tables. 

"A bit. I've got it narrowed down roughly, but I still don't know where exactly it could be." Tony answers making both of them sigh.

Before anyone could say anything else, Peter's phone began to ring. Peter huffed and pulled his phone out, quickly signaling to Tony to give him a minute when he saw that it was M.J calling him. 

"Hey, Darling, what's up?" Peter answers.

 _'Peter, love of my life, please, please, please, tell me you picked Ben and Annie up from school early.'_ M.J says, sounding like she was out of breath.

"What? No, it's not time for me to pick them up yet. Wait, why does it sound like you're running? Are you running? Why are you running?" Peter questions, not being able to hold in the worry that he was beginning to feel.

 _'I'm running because I just got a call from the school saying someone just came and picked Ben and Annie up from school.'_ M.J says, Peter easily picking up on the fear in her voice as the sound of a car door closing is heard in the background.

"Hey, it's going to be okay. Maybe Nat or Morgan just decided to sign them out and play hooky with them." Peter tries to placate, also trying to convince himself that everything was okay.

 _'No, Peter, I have a really bad feeling about this. The secretary said it was some man and he said that he worked with the Avengers so she allowed it, but called me because she wasn't sure and-'_ M.J nervously rambles, Peter cutting in and stopping her from working herself into a tizzy. 

"Okay, okay, listen to me. You and Claire go home. Don't stop anywhere on the way, don't talk to anyone, not until I get to the school and figure out what's going on." Peter instructs, getting up and signaling to Tony that they needed to go. "I will figure out what's going on, Love, I promise."

 _'Find our children, Peter Parker. You find our children.'_ M.J shakily says, clearly trying to put up a mask she no longer was used to having to wear.

"I will. I swear to you, I will. You and Claire just focus on getting home safe." Peter says before exchanging his goodbyes and hanging up. "We need to go to the kid's school, now." Peter tells Tony, putting as much urgency as he could in his voice. 

"Why, what's going on?" Tony asks, instantly following Peter when he began walking away.

"Someone picked the kids up from school and we don't know who it is so just to be on the safe side we need to go to figure out who signed them out." Peter explains, both of the men being quick to get up to Peter's office. 

"So, why aren't we going up to the school?" Tony questions, watching as Peter sat down at his desk and began doing something on his laptop.

"Because the school's not going to have answers for me - they don't even know who picked the kids up - so I'm going to directly to the source and figure it out myself." Peter answers, smiling when he saw the confusion still sitting on Tony's face. "I'm hacking into the security camera footage." Peter explains, pulling a laugh out of Tony.

"You know, almost two decades have passed, but you, Peter Parker, have not changed a bit." Tony lightheartedly says, coming around and looking over Peter's shoulder at the footage on the laptop. 

Peter fast-forwarded through most of the footage, gasping and pausing it when two men began walking in.

"Tony, you said you have a rough estimate to where that base was?" Peter asks as he begins to zoom into one of the men's faces.

"Yeah, why? Who is that?" 

"I don't know who he is exactly, but I would recognize him from anywhere. He's one of the men in the video we have from the night you disappeared." Peter tells the scientist.

"Why does he look like that?" Tony questions, completely stunning Peter with the odd change of subject.

"Look like what?"

"Like he's trying desperately to be one of those vampires from that book series." Tony says, Peter gaping at him in return.

"Really? _That's_ what you're worried about? Not that fact that he took my kids, but the fact that he looks like a Twilight character?" 

"No, you're right, sorry. So are you sure that this is the guy? I mean, I guess it would be difficult not recognizing him, looking like that." Tony questions, wanting to be certain about this before they go in guns blazing. 

"Tony, I have watched that video over a thousand times. Trust me when I say this is him." Peter says, brushing past the comment of his looks again.

"Alright, then suit up. Looks like we're going back to New Jersey." 

* * *

"Annie. Annie-May, wake up." Ben whispers to his younger sister, who was still laying on the floor passed out. Looking around the - what looked like - a storage room turned cell that they were in, Ben tried to remember exactly what happened. 

He remembered getting called out of class and going into the office to leave, but after that it begins to get a little fuzzy. He couldn't remember who it was that picked him up, but clearly they weren't anyone good or else he wouldn't be sitting here tied up with his youngest sister. 

The real questions was, how did they manage to get Ben and Annie to actually go with them, and why couldn't Ben remember anything about it?

"Annie, come on, it's time to wake up now." Ben tries again, trying to reach over and nudge Annie as best as he could. It was a bit difficult though, considering his hands were tied behind his back and he had legs that didn't seem to want to work. 

Slowly Annie began to stir, Ben sighing in relief when he saw that his sister was waking up.

"Come on, Annie-May. Wake-up!" Ben continues to say, Annie scrunching up her face in return.

"Leave me alone, Benji. 'M sleepin'." Annie mumbles, causing Ben to huff in return.

"Now is not the time to sleep. Now is the time to figure out where we are." Ben says, confusing Annie enough to convince her to open her eyes. It only took a few seconds of looking around before Annie realized that they were in some sort of trouble.

"Benji, where are we?" Annie asks, struggling to sit up as she did so.

"I have no clue. Someone managed to take us somehow." Ben replies, giving Annie a sympathetic look when she let out a low whimper. 

"What do they want from us?" Annie hesitantly asks, going to anxiously suck on her fingers until she remembered that her hands were tied behind her back.

"I don't know. It has to do with wanting something from Dad. You know how people will do anything to get at the Avengers for something." Ben replies, rolling his eyes with as much annoyance as he felt. "Can you break free from those?" Ben asks, nodding his head towards the ropes that were holding Annie's hands back.

Clearly whoever took him and Annie didn't take into consideration that they could have possibly inherited powers from their Father because they were both tied in in plain rope. Although, the only person they really underestimated was Annie; Ben was unfortunately - well, unfortunately to him - born normal.

Annie just nodded before using her strength to bust out of the ropes, rubbing her wrists in order to ease the slight burns there.

"Now hurry up and untie me." Ben commands, turning his hands so Annie can get to them. 

"What do we do?" Annie asks once she managed to free Ben's hands from their confines. 

"We need to find a safe place to hide. We can't just stay in this cell and hope that the people who took us aren't going to hurt us, but I also can't walk well enough for us to completely leave where we are. So, our safest bet is to just find a random room, lock ourselves in, and wait for Dad to get here with the Avengers." Ben simplifies for the eight-year-old, sighing when he saw tears forming in her eyes.

"Don't cry." Ben pleads, only succeeding in making the tears fall.

"I'm scared." Annie admits to her older brother. "What happens if we get caught before Daddy finds us?" Annie cries, Ben being quick to pull her to his chest to muffle her cries so whoever was guarding them would still think they were passed out. 

"We're not going to get caught, I swear to you. We just need to be quick; you need to help me get to another room." Ben says, Annie nodding to show that she understood. "Now listen out in the hallway and tell me if you can hear anyone." Ben directs, pushing Annie towards the door of the cell. 

"So, did our oh-so-fearless leader contact the two Avengers?" Annie hears a man's voice ask. 

"Nah, he didn't need to. I guarantee that as soon as that Spider-Guy realized his kids are gone he's going to be running right over on over here with Iron Man by his side." A second man says.

"It was really stupid of them to come back to that corn field. I mean, did they really think that we weren't going to be searching every inch of that cornfield for Stark?" The first man chuckles.

"Speaking of which, why aren't you watching to make sure they don't escape?" The second man all but shouts making Annie gasp in fear. 

"Because the girl is no older than ten and the boy is crippled. You really think they need to have a close eye kept on them? We're of better use out here to help fight these comic book wannabes." The first voice says, the reply from the second voice being left unheard due to Annie pulling away from the door.

"They don't know I have powers." Annie tells Ben, confirming his suspicion. 

"Good, it's good that they underestimated you; it'll make it easier for us to escape. Do you think you can break the handle off the door and get us out of here?" Ben asks, smiling encouragingly when Annie nodded her confirmation. 

Slowly, and as quietly as she could, Annie broke the handle in half and pulled it out. Gently, she reached down and helped her brother stand as best as he could before steadily pushing the door open. 

"Do you hear anything?" Ben whispers once they both peered around the door and didn't see anyone.

"No one close enough to see us." Annie replies.

"Good, good. Okay, so you see that closet over there? I'm going to need you to help us get over there." Ben instructs, slightly feeling bad when he had to lean most of his weight onto his younger sister. 

"Wait, wait, before you open the door." Ben stops his sister once they were standing in front of the room, turning himself to face back down the hall. As soon as he steadied himself against the wall, he took the handle that Annie was thankfully still holding, and chucked it down to the other side of the hall.

"What?! Why would you do that? What was-" Annie began to question her voice shrill with fear. Ben was quick to slap his hand over her mouth, though, pushing both of them into the room and shutting the door as the two men Annie heard from before began to shout and run down the hall.

"Listen, listen to me, I know you're scared, I know, but just - shh, for a second. I had to throw that down there because now they think we've ran down the other hall. They have no idea or suspicion that we're down here now so, shh. It's okay." Ben explains, plopping down on the ground and leaning against one of the lab tables there while simultaneously ignoring the reason for there to be lab tables here. 

Before either child could get even remotely comfortable, the ground beneath them began to shake.

"What's happening?" Annie whines as she falls to her knees, crawling over to Ben instead of walking. 

"I'm not sure." Ben admits, looking around the room to try and find a safer spot for them. Once he saw that the lab table they were against had an empty storage hole, he began pushing Annie towards it. "Here, crawl into there." 

"What about you? You can't fit." Annie cries out, stopping herself from going further into the cubby hole when she realized. 

"I'm going to keep guard. Make sure no one's getting in here." Ben says making Annie scoff at him.

"Yeah, because out of the two of us, the kid who can't even walk without crutches is more fit to fight soldiers than the kid with powers." Annie snarks, earning a glare in return.

"You're a baby, you don't know what you're talking about." Ben dismisses, sliding the storage door closed and effectively muffling Annie's protest. 

Ben crawled as best as he could to the door, pressing his ear to the door to try and see if he could hear anything. He could hear faint shouts an gunshots in the background, but nothing prepared him for the door to the room swinging right open. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to begin this by saying I am terrible at writing action and fight scenes. So if this chapter is rough, please bear with me.

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”  
― Friedrich Nietzsche 

* * *

"Okay, so what's the game plan?" Peter asks three hours later when they finally were able to find the old base. When Tony said he had a rough estimate, he really meant a _rough_ estimate. "Tony?" Peter calls out again when the scientist didn't answer him. 

Glancing over next to him, Peter saw Tony blankly staring at the base. Very hesitantly, Peter shook Tony's shoulder, not wanting to startle him out of what - Peter was assuming - was a PTSD episode, but also wanting him to come back down to Earth.

"Hey, Tony, snap out of it. It's okay, you're safe. You're not going back here so they can continue to do what they were doing to you." Peter tries to calm, confusion washing over when when Tony began walking towards the base. 

"Tony. Hey, Tony, what are you doing?" Peter harshly whispers, trying to get the older man to stop walking away. Making sure his guard was still firmly up, Peter followed Tony into the base, coming to the conclusion that this was no longer PTSD induced and something else was causing this.

Peter soon found him and Tony standing in a wide open room, the door slamming closed behind them. There was only one singular light hanging above them, making it difficult for Peter to look around and see what was around him. The only thing Peter knew for sure was that his spidey-sense were going off the charts, making him feel like they had just fallen into a trap.

"Even after all of these years, it still surprises me how easy it is to control his mind." A man's voice echoes all around them, making Peter turn around in circles in attempt to get even a small glance of who was speaking.

"It also still surprises me how strong your loyalty remained, even with Stark gone." The voice continues. "Maybe the loyalty runs so deep and that's why it was so easy to get into your children's minds. Or it could just be because they're simply that; children."

"Where are they? What have you done with them?" Peter growls, hating the fact that all that seemed to do was amuse whoever the voice belonged to. 

"Nothing too life altering, yet. They're mainly just pawns needed for this exchange." The voice says.

"What exchange?" Peter questions, knowing he wasn't going to like the answer to this question. 

"Your children's lives, for Starks." 

"Show yourself!" Peter shouts, wanting to know who it was exactly that was black mailing him. 

Slowly a man began walking out of the shadows, revealing himself. It was the same man from the videos, and even though Peter has seen him a million times before, it was still jarring to see him in person. If Tony wasn't standing there completely blank, Peter was sure he would make another comment about how much this guy truly looked like a vampire. 

His skin was a shade of grey that you only saw on the living dead, his eyes glowed red, and his teeth were almost as sharp as a shark's. 

"Who are you?" Peter questions, his confusion growing more when all the man - creature? - in front of him scoffed in disbelief. 

"Doctor Morbius at your service." The man greets, rolling his eyes and continuing when Peter didn't show any kind of recognition. "What, my good pal Doctor Octavius didn't tell you about me? God knows he wouldn't shut up about bringing you down. But, then again, I guess he wasn't around for too long before I got rid of him; he really was useless wasn't he?" The man - Morbius - rambled.

"What do you want from us?" Peter asks, hoping to stop Morbius from continuing down whatever messed up trip down memory lane that he was going down. 

"Isn't it obvious? Look at me! I wasn't supposed to end up like this! I was supposed to be curing the rare blood disease I had, but Octavius had other plans. He made me into this and I want it fixed. I've seen what Stark can do - how he was able to build a new element to save himself - and I will stop at nothing to make sure he does the same for me. Even if that means having experiment on your son to figure out a cure." Morbius threatens, instantly making Peter see red and blast him to the other side of the room with his taser webs; Peter secretly thanking whatever gave him the idea to make webs strong enough to hold even Steve against a wall.

Apparently, blasting Morbius to the other side of the room broke whatever mind control he had on Tony because the man quickly snapped out of the trance he was in and began frantically looking around the building. 

Unfortunate, at the same time, Morbius whistled and called in a bunch of his goons for reinforcement.

"Wha- Pete, what's happening?" Tony asks, instantly fighting the people surrounding him along side Peter. 

"Long story short, scary vampire man wants you to stay with him for all of eternity - or at least until you're able to cure him - and we need to figure out a game plan to make sure that doesn't happen." Peter explains, rolling his eyes when he caught a glimpse of the bewildered look Tony was giving him. "Yeah, you kind of missed the whole monologue villains like to give." 

"Okay, game plan." Tony huffs, continuing to fight off what felt like hundreds of HYDRA soldiers. "I think I've got an idea." Tony shouts, Peter moving towards Tony as best as he could while simultaneously fighting off all the soldiers. 

"You better tell me the plan quick; it feels like they're multiplying by the second." Peter pants as he kicks one of the soldiers clear across the room.

"Right, well, I remember when those vampire movies began coming out, Pepper made me watch them with her, and they said that the best way to kill a vampire was with fire." Tony says, making Peter scoff.

"You can not seriously be comparing this situation to _Twilight_." Peter snarks, grunting in frustration as they continued to fight.

"You got a better idea?" Tony snaps back.

"Okay and how do you supposed we go through with your plan?" Peter asks on lieu of an answer, shooting another string of webs at Morbius when it looked like he was beginning to break free from the first round of webs. 

"I'll distract the cult and their leader while you go out and find the kids. Once you do, get the hell out of here because I'm going to blow it up." Tony tells Peter, making him shake his head in return.

"No, not happening." Peter quickly disagrees.

"Peter, Kid, I need you to work with me on this one." Tony pleads.

"No! Come up with a plan that doesn't involve us splitting up." Peter says, making Tony realize the real reason Peter was being so stubborn about all of this. 

"Pete, I know you're worried about what happened the last time happening again but you've got to trust me on this." Tony pleads, although it didn't do much to persuade Peter like he wanted.

"I-I won't. I won't leave you again- I _can't_ leave you again. Tony I can't lose you again, I just can't." Peter practically cries, and in that moment, Peter felt like he was eighteen-years-old again. All of a sudden he was back there, back to the night where he saw his father-figure for the very last time. 

"Pete, I understand that us splitting up failed miserably the last time, but I promise it's going to be okay now. You've just got to trust me." Tony says, Peter's breathing picking up as he began to look around the room, realizing how screwed they were currently. 

Making a quick split decision, Peter threw his last three taser webs at Morbius, sticking him further against the wall and zapping him. Just like with Tony, Morbius' control on all of the soldiers released, causing all of them to fall down to the ground.

"That'll give you about ten minutes. If you're not outside within that time, I'm coming back in and dragging your ass out myself." Peter sternly says while Tony just pants and stares at him in disbelief and a bit of annoyance. 

"You couldn't have done that a bit sooner?" Tony huffs, making Peter roll his eyes.

"Well I couldn't have just wasted all of them. We needed to figure out a plan first." Peter defends. "Now, go!" Peter says before running down a random hall. 

He made sure to get far away from the previous room, trying to find a quiet spot so he could use his super hearing and figure out where in the world his kids were. 

Peter could faintly hear their voices coming down from one of the halls, booking it as fast as he could down it; only stopping every now and then to see if he could hear their voices again.

Peter soon found himself lost, turning around in circles when he found himself in a hall filled with rooms, half tempted to just start busting through them when he heard a crash coming a bit further down the hall. 

Taking that as his hint, Peter began running towards where he heard the crash, quickly coming up to a crossroads. Closing his eyes, Peter tried to block out all the rest of his senses to try and hear better where the kids were.

"Out of all the times for you two to quit being chatterboxes, now is not the time." Peter whispers to himself, smiling when he heard the familiar whines of Ben and Annie arguing. 

Peter ran towards the closed door he heard their voices behind, fully ready to scoop both of them up into his arms and never let them go again. Just as Peter was reaching the door, the whole building began to shake beneath him, practically making him fall to his knees.

"Damn, Tony, you couldn't have found a subtler way to tell me to hurry up?" Peter grouses as he regains his footing. Figuring he needed to be as quick as possible, Peter slammed open the door, instantly ducking the limp that came swinging at him.

"Woah, hey, woah! It's me, it's me!" Peter shouts, grabbing Ben's arms which were basically just flailing in Peter's general direction rather than actually throwing punches in defense.

"Dad?" Ben asks in surprise once he gained awareness.

"Yeah, it's me, now we need to go and we need to go fast. So be quick, hop on my back. Annie-May, you can come out now and come here." Peter rapidly says, wrangle his two kids together and making sure he was able to carry both of them out of the building. 

"What's happening?" Annie asks once Peter starts booking it down the hall.

"Long story short, the bad guys that took Grandpa Tony wanted him back and so now Grandpa Tony is going to blow up the building." Peter shortly answers, more focused on making sure Annie continued to hold onto his neck since he had to hold onto Ben. 

"He's going to blow up the whole building? Why?" Ben questions, shivering slightly once they exited the building and the cold night air hit him. 

"Kid, I'm going to teach you a very important life lesson." Peter braces, running a bit further into the filed, really making sure there was a bunch of distance between them and the building. "Never, ever, question your grandfather." Peter says, flopping down on the ground and protectively pulling both of his kids to his chest.

"Really? That's the important life lesson?" Ben chuckles as Annie lets out a bunch of giggles.

"Trust me, it took me a really long time to learn that sometimes you're just better off letting him do whatever it is he's going to do." Peter says before sitting up and looking his children all over. 

"Dad, Dad. Dad," Ben stops, continuously pulling away from Peter's curious touches "we're fine." Ben reassures once he manages push Peter away slightly. 

"Well I just want to make sure you both-" Peter began to defend himself, the rest of his defense getting cut off by a giant explosion going off in the building. Peter rushed to pull each kid behind him, shielding them from the heat and debris flying everywhere with his body.

Once he was sure the kids were again, Peter whipped around, expecting to see the Iron Man suit flying out of the flames. But instead, he saw nothing. There was nothing but building anxiety and all Peter could do at that moment was scream.

"Tony!" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh... take a drink of water every time I use the word quick/quickly in this chapter and you'll be hydrated for a week haha all that's left is the epilogue!!


	7. Epilogue

“A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead.”  
― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

* * *

_A year later_

Peter walked through the cemetery on autopilot, not really thinking about where he was going as he continued to walk towards the grave turned tribute. Although, it wasn't like he needed to think to get to where he was going; he's been there so many times before his body just automatically knew where to go. 

It felt almost natural, even though Peter hadn't been to the grave/tribute in over a year. He didn't even know what compelled him to visit today of all days. 

The old anniversary of Tony's disappearance came and passed and no longer really meant anything - there was a new anniversary now - so there really was no reason for Peter to be there.

And, yet, here he was, sitting down in front of the grave turned tribute. 

"I don't know why I'm here if I'm being perfectly honest. At this point, after coming here for seventeen years straight, it's become a habit to come here when something big is happening; and something big has happened. It's my youngest son's first birthday. Even now I can't believe that he was born a year ago. I still wish you could have been there to see him be born." Peter tells the hunk of stone sitting in front of him. 

"You're still not over that? Come on, it's been a year and I've apologized multiple times for it. I mean, how was I supposed to know that M.J was going to go into labor the same day the Avengers send me on a mission?" A voice interrupts Peter's soliloquy.

"Well, considering you're supposed to be retired from the Avengers." Peter teases, turning around to come face to face with Tony. "How did you know I was here?" 

"Your scary wife told me it's a habit for you to come here when something's happening. You know, I really don't appreciate you leaving me to do all the party planning." tony ridicules, making Peter look away abashedly, seemingly embarrassed for getting caught talking to the grave. 

"Yeah, we should start heading back to the house before M.J comes here and drags us there herself." Peter lightheartedly says as he gets up off of the ground and dusts off his pants. Before Peter could walk too far away though, he was stopped by Tony gently grabbing onto his shoulder.

"Hey, I know we didn't really talk about it, but last month kind of marked a year since everything happened and-" Tony began to ramble, still not the greatest at putting his emotions into words, even after all of these years.

"We don't need to talk about that, Tony." Peter brushes off, beginning to walk towards the car again. 

"You thought I died again. You don't think there's something there that we should at least discuss?" Tony continues to pry.

"No, there's not. I only thought you were gone for a second because you got out on the other side of the building, but it was only for a second. Now, you're here and you're okay. We're all okay." Peter says, sounding sincere enough for Tony to believe it. 

"If you say so, Kid." Tony sighs.

"Now, come on, _Grandpa_ , wouldn't want to miss your grandson's first birthday also." Peter teases, laughing at the disgruntled look he earned in return. 

"You know, I really don't appreciate all the milage this 'Granpa' joke is getting." Tony grumbles, only really pretended t be upset about it. Everyone and anyone who had eyes could see how tightly Tony was wrapped around all of the children's fingers; especially Annie-May, no matter how much he would deny it.

"Is it really a joke if you're actually a Grandpa, though?" Peter keeps ragging on him, Tony playfully lunging at Peter in revenge.

"Just because technically I'm in my seventies, I still have my forty-year-old body and I can and will kick your ass." Tony threatens. Peter just rolled his eyes and slung his arm around Tony's shoulders as they continued to walk.

"Whatever you say, old man." 

* * *

Taking in the sight, Peter couldn't help but smile and sigh in satisfaction. 

The party went off without a hitch, everyone just glad to be able to celebrate the little one's first birthday. All of the Avengers showed up, although they had to go before the cake was even cut because - of course - crime never sleeps and duty called.

Thankfully, they didn't even have to convince Tony to stay, the man was too wrapped up in practically smothering Richard in either presents or cuddles; never handing the baby off for too long before taking him back. 

Now, cake and ice cream have already been passed out and eaten, the presents have all been opened, and all the kids were playing together while Richard slept in Tony's arms. 

Everything just felt so... complete, once again.

"I missed this look on you." M.J says as she sidles up to Peter, gently putting her hand on his shoulder to get his attention.

"What look?" Peter questions, pulling M.J onto his lap.

"The look of contentment." M.J answers, putting her hand up to stop the argument that was about to leave Peter's mouth.

"I know you loved us with your whole heart, and I know you were happy with how our family was, but there was always something missing." M.J explains, looking up at Tony, who was telling all of the kids some sort of story; no doubt about Iron Man. "I'm glad you got back your something missing." 

"How did I ever get so lucky to ever have someone like you?" Peter marvels.

"Oh, this is pure selfishness. I never had a father-figure either, so I'm just stealing yours. Why do you think I work for Pepper? It's only to get closer to Tony." M.J teases, making Peter chuckle and squeeze her sides "Also I agree, you are lucky to have a catch like me." M.J adds, Peter playfully bitting her shoulder in return.

"Still as cocky as ever." Peter says before pulling M.J down for a kiss. For a moment, it was just Peter and M.J; no one else in the world existed. But, alas, there's a bunch of children in their family.

"Eww." Annie whines, effectively pulling her parents out of their little moment.

"Oh, God, gross! What, is four kids not enough for you?" Morgan spits out, pretending to dramatically throw up on the floor.

"Hey, Tony, did you know there was one time where Morgan had to call me because she went to a Halloween party and-" Peter begins to tell Tony in retaliation, causing Morgan to practically sprint across the room and slam her hand over Peter's mouth.

"No, we are not telling that story!" 

"Oh, do you mean the Halloween party she went to in high school dressed up as one of the knights as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, not realizing that high schoolers don't usually dress up?" M.J chimes in making Morgan throw her head back and groan.

"You guys are so embarrassing." Morgan whines while Tony tries to control his laughter.

"I remember that! I also remember specifically warning you that no one else was going to dress up." Pepper adds, giggling a bit at Morgan's beat red face.

"That's why she had to call me! She was too embarrassed to own up to Pepper and tell her she was right." Peter continues to tease. Morgan just huffed and pulled Richard out of Tony's arms.

"I will not take this slander no longer. At least Richard can't talk." Morgan mumbles, walking into the kitchen with the baby; no doubt to fill him up with more sweets.

They continued like that until it was dark and half of the kids were sleeping. Just sitting around, sharing stories, and laughing with each other. Just simply being a family.

And, for the first time in eighteen-years, Peter allowed himself to smile and relax, allowing the feeling of imperturbability to wash over him.

For the first time in eighteen-years Peter's family was finally complete. 

And he was going to keep it that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, my first multi-chapter fic of the year is finally done and over with haha I hope you guys enjoyed it, it was definitely something that was out of my comfort zone. Also, keep an eye out for my new IronDad Beauty and the Beast AU coming out later today!!


End file.
